How utterly pathetic that Blair, not content with a huge shift to the right at home, is now backing the centre-right of Irish politics. Supposedly Labour in Britain are our sister party throught the PES and Socialist International. Of course we have many comrades (see my earlier posts on John McDonnell) but Blair is not one of them. I can't imagine how much in breach of PES rules it is to back a rival candidate over a sister party in another country's election, but it certainly goes against principles of fraternity and internationalism which supposedly underpin the left.
I wrote the mail below to the General Secretary of Brit Labour, let's see if they respond. Any replies will be posted here.
Dear Mr Watt,
I am writing to voice my disgust at the appearance of your Party Leader, Tony Blair, in a Party Political Broadcast for Ireland's Fianna Fáil party due to air this evening.
The decision of a Labour leader to publically back a centre-right party in this manner flies in the face of the principles of internationalism and fraternity we supposedly share as membersof the Party of European Socialists.
The historic link between our two parties has been severely damaged by this personalised intervention by your leader. Unless there is a retraction of Mr Blair's appearance in this video, I will be writing to the Party of European Socialists to ask them to take action against British Labour and working with my own party's representatives to do the same.
Yours in disgust,
Dermot Looney
Member, Irish Labour Party
